What Will Happen to the Solar System When the Sun Dies?

Utter destruction, in a nutshell. This is not to sound pessimistic or nihilistic, but when our sun eventually goes the way of all things in the universe and dies, it will swallow up both Mercury and Venus, and then lastly, Earth, as it becomes a red giant.

However, there's not much to worry of that happening in our lifetime, as the projection for the sun's expansion rate until this happens is in the next 7 billion years, so when we're all long gone.

Once the inner planets have been engulfed, Mars and the larger planets will be stripped of their atmospheres, and the outer planets will be ejected. Along with Uranus and Neptune, the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud will also be ejected.

The sun will then shrink down and become a white dwarf with some of the remnants from Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn remaining in its system although depending on how much mass the sun has lost, whether there will be remnants of these planets is still quite uncertain.

(Image credit: WP/Wikimedia Commons)


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